Wednesday, April 11, 2012

National Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi now on Google

Visitors can now sit at home and view artistic masterpieces of India and world

New
Delhi: Google maps of India might raise the hackles of government and
the sensitivities of the people. But this is one Google venture that
should bring smiles to India’s netizens. The Art Project Powered By
Google, which was launched on Tuesday by culture minister Kumari Selja
at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) brings precious artefacts
and paintings of modern masters like Jamini Roy and Amrita Shergil to
the Internet.

It is a
special project initiated by Google and which was accepted by the
culture ministry after the initial bureaucratic resistance over issues
like Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and the suspicion why is Google
interested in our museums. But the air was cleared soon enough and within
six months, the entry into the virtual world was made with 100 paintings
from the NGMA collection and 100 artefacts from the National Museum now
on the Net. Work is going on to increase the number of objets d’art
accessible.

Minister Selja who was all praise for Google said, “I can confess here that they (Google) have inspired me.” She
told her officials, “We have to grow fast. We cannot move at snail’s
pace.” She said the Google project “opened our eyes to the potential of
IT.”

The
Natiopnal Museum has 200,000 artefacts and the NGMA a collection of
17,000 paintings. It is being envisaged that 10,000 of the artefacts and
paintings would be added to the virtual museum.

Amit
Sood, the Google mind behind that project, said that it was soon
realized when it all began six months ago that it was too
European-centric, and so it was decided to tap other countries and other
cultures. He admitted that it was a nightmarish venture which involved
sleepless nights and hard work. Google has used a contraption called
street-view camera, which had been used for constructing Google maps of
cities, in this project, where the machined was made to go into the
museum, and zoom in on the works, giving a microscopic and as well as
enlarged versions.

He said
that it will be possible view the paintings in microscopic detail, which
is an advantage with the viewer on the computer. He said some of the
paintings comprised of 7 billion pixels and resolutions were excellent.

His own
favourite and that of his team is a Rajputana painting titled, “Radha
Krihsna in a Love Boat”, whose painter in unknown. Sood showed at the
launch the details of the picture. The other masters included those of
Jamini Roy and Amrita Shergil.

The
advantage and experience of this project is that it enables the viewer
to take a walk through the museums, stand before the painting or
sculpture and then go on other paintings and other museums, including
the White House, yes the American president’s home in Washington, and
its collection of art works as well as a virtual walk through the
presidential mansion.

Sood said that the pictures cannot be downloaded. And that Google has no rights over the exhibits.